2023 World Peacefulness Declines - Conflict Deaths at Highest Level This Century
London, June 28, 2023, Today marks the launch of the 17 th edition of the Global Peace Index from international think-tank, the Institute for Economics & Peace (IEP).
Deaths from global conflict increased by 96% to 238,000
New data shows higher number of conflict deaths in Ethiopia than Ukraine, eclipsing the previous global peak during the Syrian war
79 countries witnessed increased levels of conflict including Ethiopia, Myanmar, Ukraine, Israel, and South Africa
The global economic impact of violence increased by 17% or $1 trillion, to $17.5 trillion in 2022, equivalent to 13% of global GDP
A Chinese blockade of Taiwan would cause a drop in global economic output of $2.7 trillion, almost double the loss that occurred due to the 2008 global financial crisis
Despite the conflict in Ukraine, 92 countries improved on military expenditure and 110 decreased their military personnel
Conflicts are becoming more internationalised with 91 countries now involved in some form of external conflict, up from 58 in 2008
Read more: Reliefweb, https://tinyurl.com/yu4s65p3
Trafficking Victims Wrongly Denied Financial Support in Lockdown
Potential victims of trafficking awaiting asylum support decisions during the first lockdown were wrongly denied the full payments to which they were entitled. So held the High Court in R (on the application of PM) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2023] EWHC 1551.
The Claimant, PM, is an asylum seeker. In 2019, she received a positive reasonable grounds decision recognising her as a potential victim of modern slavery. This entitled her to weekly payments of £35. In May 2020, she became destitute and applied for asylum support under section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. While that application was outstanding, she was given temporary support under section 98 and moved into fully catered initial accommodation in a hotel. She spent several months there because of a shortage of accommodation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Her trafficking support continued until 6 July 2020, when the Secretary of State unexpectedly ceased such payments to people in initial accommodation. It was then reintroduced from 28 August 2020 at the lower rate of £25.40 based on new, amended, guidance.
In her judicial review claim, PM argued that she should actually have been paid £65 a week. She relied on the Court of Appeal’s judgment in R (on the application of JB (Ghana)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 1392. In that case, the Court held that potential victims who had been granted section 95 support but were still in catered hotel accommodation because of Covid-19 were entitled to a total of £65 a week. This was the effect of guidance published on 24 March 2020. It did not distinguish between catered and self-catering accommodation even though people in the former did not have to buy their own food.
Read more: Freemovement, https://tinyurl.com/bde9tez4
What is a Judicial Review? What Powers Does it Have?
An appeal to the Court of Appeal can never be a full rehearing:
it is a review of the findings made by the judge below.
1. Regardless of the appropriateness of judicial interventions, overbearing and intimidatory conduct, directed at a representative, could result in an unfair hearing as well as give the impression of bias to a fair-minded and informed observer, applying Porter v Magill [2001] UKHL 67.
2. Whilst it is, of course, always necessary for the judge to retain control of proceedings, so as to ensure that they remain focussed, effective, and efficient, it is also a key part of the judge’s role to conduct the hearing to ensure that they get the best out of all the participants appearing before them. This approach should enable the judge to do justice to the case and help to reach a high-quality decision for the parties. The task involves listening as well as guiding, and patience tempered by the need to steer the parties in the direction of the issues that the tribunal needs to decide. However carefully constructed or well-reasoned, a decision which is founded on an unfair hearing cannot stand.
3. In the event a representative raises a concern as to personal safety, this must be explored promptly, in sufficient detail and with sensitivity.
4. The inclusion of a copy of a formal complaint made about a judge with the notice of appeal is a practice which is to be deprecated. The two processes should operate separately from one another. No recourse is to be had to either the existence of or the content of a complaint against the judge in reaching a decision as to the presence of an error of law in the decision and reasons of the First-tier Tribunal.
Chief Inspector Highly Critical of Foreign National Offender Removal Operations
The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Neal, has published an inspection report on the Home Office’s handling of foreign national offender cases. It is a highly critical report and, as the government was no doubt aware, had it been published on any other day that that of the Rwanda judgment, would no doubt have generated considerable adverse media attention. The government controls the publication date for these reports.
To give you an idea: My inspection found FNORC [Foreign National Offenders Returns Command] to be a large and complex operation which lacked the ability to track and monitor the progression of cases, from initial referral to decision outcome. Staff did not have a clear sense of priorities, and there was a disproportionate focus on managing cases, rather than making decisions and progressing the removal of FNOs…Moreover, there is insufficient information to effectively identify which FNOs could be removed from the country today. The Home Office does not have an overarching view of its caseworking system. In order to establish the current state of a particular case, case owners have to manually interrogate individual case records. This is no way to run a government department.
This is the opportunity cost to all the high profile but failed policies at the Home Office: a really badly run department failing to do the basics. In the press release for the report, Neal refers to the Early Removal Scheme and says that: I found that little, if any, progress had been made in this area since the National Audit Office made similar findings in 2014.
The people running the Home Office just are not serious people.
Source: Freemovement, https://tinyurl.com/bdz9fy3k
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Chief Inspector Highly Critical of Foreign National Offender Removal Operations
The Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration, David Neal, has published an inspection report on the Home Office’s handling of foreign national offender cases. It is a highly critical report and, as the government was no doubt aware, had it been published on any other day that that of the Rwanda judgment, would no doubt have generated considerable adverse media attention. The government controls the publication date for these reports.
To give you an idea: My inspection found FNORC [Foreign National Offenders Returns Command] to be a large and complex operation which lacked the ability to track and monitor the progression of cases, from initial referral to decision outcome. Staff did not have a clear sense of priorities, and there was a disproportionate focus on managing cases, rather than making decisions and progressing the removal of FNOs…Moreover, there is insufficient information to effectively identify which FNOs could be removed from the country today. The Home Office does not have an overarching view of its caseworking system. In order to establish the current state of a particular case, case owners have to manually interrogate individual case records. This is no way to run a government department.
This is the opportunity cost to all the high profile but failed policies at the Home Office: a really badly run department failing to do the basics. In the press release for the report, Neal refers to the Early Removal Scheme and says that: I found that little, if any, progress had been made in this area since the National Audit Office made similar findings in 2014.
The people running the Home Office just are not serious people.
Source: Freemovement, https://tinyurl.com/bdz9fy3k
Lords Inflict Multiple Defeats on Illegal Migration Bill
In the first defeat of the day, the Lords voted by 222 to 179 in favour of an amendment moved by Baroness Chakrabarti which clarifies that the provisions of the Bill should be interpreted consistently with the UK's obligations under relevant international human rights treaties.
Baroness Chakrabarti said of the amendment: "It replaces the rather long and strange narrative in Clause 1, so as to reinstate Section 3, the interpretation provision, of the Human Rights Act, and ensure that the rest of the Bill is read so as not to require that British officials, Ministers or His Majesty's judges breach precious international treaties that our former statesmen and stateswomen played such a heroic part in creating. These are the [European Convention on Human Rights] of 1950, the refugee convention of 1951, the conventions on statelessness of 1954 and 1961, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child of 1989, and the anti-trafficking convention of 2005. This interpretation amendment is essential to protecting the most vulnerable people, including by any amendments to follow. It is equally important for the international rules-based order and for our reputation as a great democracy in a troubled world."
Read more: EIN, https://tinyurl.com/yskdt767
Asylum Seekers at Manston ‘Holding Facility’ May Have Been Treated Inhumanely
Many asylum seekers may have been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment at Manston holding facility in Kent, according to a report. A seven-strong delegation from the Council of Europe’s prevention of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment committee carried out a “rapid reaction” visit to Manston over 25-28 November due to concerns about conditions there, a visit that officials described as “relatively rare” in these circumstances.
Manston, a Ministry of Defence site in Ramsgate, has been beset by series of scandals, including a mass diphtheria outbreak, drug taking by guards, and asylum seekers being moved off the site and dumped in central London. The facility was initially intended to hold a maximum of 1,600 people, but at one point had 4,000, with many staying considerably longer than the 24-hour legal time limit. Between 15 August and 23 November last year, more than 18,000 new arrivals were processed through Manston, according to the Home Office.
The Council of Europe’s report published today Thursday 29th June, said that during the period when it was severely overcrowded, in late October and early November last year, prolonged detention in poor conditions “may have resulted in many persons held at Manston having been subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment”.
Read more: Diane Taylor, Guardian, https://tinyurl.com/y4hafhz2
California’s First-In-Nation Reparations Taskforce Releases Final Report
California’s reparations taskforce released its final report with recommendations for how the state should atone for its history of racial violence and discrimination against Black residents on Thursday 29th June 2023.
This document, which could serve as a national model for how governments can attempt to right the wrongs of the past, marks the end of a nearly three-year effort that began in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the ensuing reckoning around systemic racism and anti-Blackness in the US.
The nearly-1,100-page document includes detailed examples of historical discrimination against Black Californians that have persisted for more than a century and affect nearly all areas of life. The taskforce recommended that the state legislature make a formal apology to Black residents for “the atrocities committed by California state actors who promoted, facilitated, enforced, and permitted the institution of chattel slavery … incidents of slavery that form the systemic structures of discrimination”, the report reads.
The report suggests more than 100 ways to repair the harm, including paying descendants of enslaved people for having suffered under racist actions such as over-policing and housing discrimination.
Read more: Abené Clayton, Guardian, https://tinyurl.com/yhhv7hm2
Trafficking Victims Wrongly Denied Financial Support in Lockdown
Potential victims of trafficking awaiting asylum support decisions during the first lockdown were wrongly denied the full payments to which they were entitled. So held the High Court in R (on the application of PM) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2023] EWHC 1551.
The Claimant, PM, is an asylum seeker. In 2019, she received a positive reasonable grounds decision recognising her as a potential victim of modern slavery. This entitled her to weekly payments of £35. In May 2020, she became destitute and applied for asylum support under section 95 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. While that application was outstanding, she was given temporary support under section 98 and moved into fully catered initial accommodation in a hotel. She spent several months there because of a shortage of accommodation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. Her trafficking support continued until 6 July 2020, when the Secretary of State unexpectedly ceased such payments to people in initial accommodation. It was then reintroduced from 28 August 2020 at the lower rate of £25.40 based on new, amended, guidance.
In her judicial review claim, PM argued that she should actually have been paid £65 a week. She relied on the Court of Appeal’s judgment in R (on the application of JB (Ghana)) v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2022] EWCA Civ 1392. In that case, the Court held that potential victims who had been granted section 95 support but were still in catered hotel accommodation because of Covid-19 were entitled to a total of £65 a week. This was the effect of guidance published on 24 March 2020. It did not distinguish between catered and self-catering accommodation even though people in the former did not have to buy their own food.
Read more: Freemovement, https://tinyurl.com/bde9tez4
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